2,982 displaced Iraqis return to homeland coming from Syria

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) A total of 2,982 displaced Iraqis have returned to homeland coming from Syria, the Ministry of Displacement and Migration said.

“Of all, 2,800 displaced people have been housed at the Hajj Ali camp in Mosul, while the remaining 182 displaced people have been housed at a Dahuk camp,” the Independent Press Agency quoted Juan Mahmoud, the director of migration department in Kurdistan provinces, as saying on Tuesday.

“The ministry has secured buses to bring the displaced people back to their homeland and provided them with foodstuffs and water,” she added.

In November, Sattar Nawroz, a spokesperson of the Migration and Displacement Ministry, said more than 55% of people displaced during the three-year war against the Islamic State militants returned to their home regions.

Iraqi forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition and paramilitary troops, have been fighting since October 2016 to retake territories Islamic State had occupied. Since then, forces took back the group’s former capital, Mosul, the town of Tal Afar, Kirkuk’s Hawija, and Anbar’s Annah, Rawa and Qaim.
Iraqi authorities had unveiled plans to repatriate all refugees before this year’s end.

Violence in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

The surge in violence between armed groups and government forces has resulted in over 3 million internally displaced persons across Iraq and left more than 11 million in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.